Sunday, January 20, 2013

Or Yehuda unveils Iraqi-Jewish instrument display

Artist Oded Halahmy (pictured) has donated his collection of Iraqi-Jewish music instruments to the Babylonian Heritage Center at Or Yehuda near Tel Aviv. Prior to their exodus, Jews played a disproportionate role in music composition and performance. Report in the Jerusalem Post:

Besides having a significant numerical presence in what is now called
Iraq for more than 2,500 years, the Iraqi Jewish community of the first
half of the 20th century accounted for much of the so-called classical Arabic music scene there and, in fact, in much of the rest of the Arab world. The Al- Kuweiti brothers, for example, were among the brightest stars in the Iraqi entertainment
firmament and were the darlings of such fellow luminaries as legendary
Egyptian diva Umm Kulthum and compatriot singer and composer Mohammed
Abdel Wahab.

With that in mind, establishing a permanent
exhibition of musical instruments used in Iraq prior to the mass aliya
of Iraqi Jewry in the later 1940s and early 1950s seems only natural.
Financial considerations notwithstanding, yesterday evening a permanent
display of instruments, such as ouds, qanouns and various drums, was
officially opened at the Babylon Jewry Heritage Center in Or Yehuda. One
of the principal driving forces behind the initiative was renowned
74-year-old Iraqi-born sculptor Oded Halahmy, who divides his time
between Jaffa and New York.

Halahmy hails from a well-to-do
Baghdad family that came to Israel in 1951. He has fond memories of his
childhood environs, where he first tried his hand at the craft of
sculpting.

“Iraq was, and is, a land flowing with milk and honey,” he says.

The
use of the present tense is not a matter of nostalgia-infused
selfdeception or wishful thinking. Unlike almost all his fellow
Iraqi-born Jews, Halahmy has had the privilege of being able to visit
the country of his birth several times since the Americans stepped in
there.

“I have been to Baghdad quite a few times in all sorts of capacities,
but I am not ready to talk about exactly what I did while I was there,”
he says, although revealing that he has a literary date coming up in the
Iraqi capital.

“I have been invited to go to the National
Library in Baghdad to read from my book of poetry, which came out in
three languages – Arabic, English and Hebrew,” he says.

The tome
in question, called Art Home Lands, was inspired by the three cities he
has called home over the years – Baghdad, Jerusalem and New York.
Halahmy has also published books on sculpture and Iraqi cuisine.

In
addition to the material and culinary riches of his early years – he
conducted much of the research for his cookbook in Baghdad, including
rediscovering the secrets behind his mother’s gastronomic creations –
Halahmy happily recalls some of the musical experiences he had back
then.

“My parents loved music, and the exhibition in Or Yehuda is dedicated to their memory,” says the sculptor.

“Our radio and the record player brought all of us in the family together to listen to music. It’s not like today, when parents give their child a television and a computer, and he goes off to spend time with them on his own. We used to listen to music, like the songs performed by Umm Kulthum, and that was part of our family time together in the evenings.”

There was also live music on offer in the Halahmy household.

“We lived in a very big house, and all sorts of festive occasions and weddings took place there,” Halahmy explains.

Percussion and voice were particularly important components of the musical entertainment.

“There
were always dakata, who were women who played drums and sang, and
improvised songs on the spot about, for example, the hosts or the bride
and groom. I remember the dakata who played at my brother’s bar mitzva.
Everyone drinks arak, and the dakata play and sing. That’s why there are
percussion instruments in the collection in Or Yehuda,” he says.

For more information about the exhibition and about the Babylon Jewry Heritage Center: (03) 533-9278 and www.babylonjewry.org.il

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Introduction

In just 50 years, almost a million Jews, whose communities stretch back up to 3,000 years, have been 'ethnically cleansed' from 10 Arab countries. These refugees outnumber the Palestinian refugees two to one, but their narrative has all but been ignored. Unlike Palestinian refugees, they fled not war, but systematic persecution. Seen in this light, Israel, where some 50 percent of the Jewish population descend from these refugees and are now full citizens, is the legitimate expression of the self-determination of an oppressed indigenous, Middle Eastern people.This website is dedicated to preserving the memory of the near-extinct Jewish communities, which can never return to what and where they once were - even if they wanted to. It will attempt to pass on the stories of the Jewish refugees and their current struggle for recognition and restitution. Awareness of the injustice done to these Jews can only advance the cause of peace and reconciliation.(Iran: once an ally of Israel, the Islamic Republic of Iran is now an implacable enemy and numbers of Iranian Jews have fallen drastically from 80,000 to 20,000 since the 1979 Islamic revolution. Their plight - and that of all other communities threatened by Islamism - does therefore fall within the scope of this blog.)